In China, tensions rising over Buddhism's quiet resurgence

[rug]

By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
Updated 2m ago

SERTHAR, China – Breathless but beaming, Sheng Zisu sounds confident after five months in a maze-like Buddhist encampment high on the eastern Tibetan plateau, nearly 400 miles of bad road from the nearest city.

"Look around. They could never find me here," Sheng, 27, says of parents so anxious about their only child's turn to Tibetan Buddhism that they have threatened to kidnap her.

Sheng is far from her home — and from the bars where she used to drink and the ex-boyfriends she says cheated on her. She is here with 2,000 other Han Chinese at the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute in Serthar, Sichuan province, the rain-soaked mountainous region of southwest China.

The province is far from the central government in Beijing and a traditional gateway to Tibet, where Tibetans have practiced Buddhism for centuries — and where, for decades, China's Communist Party has suppressed Buddhists, sometimes brutally

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-11-01/tibetan-buddhism-china-communist-tension/51034604/1

[DonCoquixote]

1. What this really means

Is that the PRC is built a blip in Chinese History, and they realize that many Chinese are not happy with the deal they got. Yes, you may be the new superpower, but it does not make your life any more secure or full with potential, rather, it just means you are an empire's food. The same lesson we are hopefully learning.